Years ago at a forgiveness class for Stanford Continuing Studies, one of us met a man who once had a wife and two children and a good job. But he threw it all away because of a gambling addiction that brought his family to bankruptcy. He regularly lied to his wife about where he was going as he took trip after trip to Las Vegas and the racetracks. This deception continued over the course of several years as he built up the debt that eventually crushed him and lost him his job and his family.
We might ask what kind of life is possible for someone after such self-destructive behavior. How can he move ahead knowing the harm he caused? He cannot reclaim the family he lost nor end the financial difficulty they all face. And so, we ask, how does he forgive himself? If you were in his shoes, how might you move on?
The gambler may wallow in remorse, self-hatred, and regret for years to come. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, the remorse, regret, self-hatred, and whatever other bad feelings he experiences will not help him or make his family whole.
The bottom line is we cannot change the past, no matter how great our suffering or self-hatred. After he feels appropriate guilt and remorse, might it be possible for him, with sufficient reflection, amends, and reparations, to chart a new course in his life?
In our experience as a forgiveness researcher and a former Episcopal priest, we know that even in the face of such personal failing, there can be a path to forgiving oneself. Self-forgiveness is a form of emotional healing that allows us to move from despair and self-attack to acceptance and peace, without letting ourselves off the hook. There is a path of forgiveness available to that unfortunate gambler, and that path can be available to you.
Our decades of work with tens of thousands of people suggests that following these 12 steps will help you make peace with your actions, respond appropriately to make amends, and redirect you to a healthier future. We suggest starting with a past action that is giving you some discomfort, but not something that is crippling or giving you extreme distress, until you have more practice with this process.
1. Categorize the event
We all make mistakes—some large, some small. Here are four categories of offense that can be helped by self-forgiveness:
- You fail at an important life or developmental task, such as bankruptcy or flunking out of school.
- Your wrong or unskillful actions harm you or someone else.
- You greatly hurt yourself by patterns of decisions or actions, such as misusing substances or regularly taking unnecessary risks.
- You did not do something you knew you should, such as help a suffering family member or put money away for your child’s college education.
Categorizing the offense begins the forgiveness process. It allows you to break down what you did into a category, get a little distance, and begin the process of healing.
2. Be clear about what you did
As you identify a mistake you made that has been troubling you, take a few deep breaths and write down any thoughts and emotions that come up for you now.
While being gentle with yourself, clearly articulate the specific wrong you committed and who it may have harmed. You need to know what you are forgiving yourself for.
If you feel comfortable doing so, share your work in these steps with a friend. Or write a note to someone about it; you can choose whether or not to share it with that person. It is common that we think we are alone and unique in our suffering. Sharing can remind us that everyone makes mistakes. Confessing what you have done also prevents you from slipping into denial, suppression, repression, and forgetting.
3. Understand what you want
You may not necessarily want to reconcile with the person you hurt. Maybe you just want to get rid of the shame, release the blame, and feel calm and whole at your center.
When choosing self-forgiveness, many people say that they want to accept their mistakes, relieve their suffering, and get rid of the shame they feel.
A reminder: Remorse over past behavior is not a bad thing. When you feel remorse, you are often seeing your behavior and its consequences clearly. And through remorse, when you are able to make amends, it can bring balance and clarity.
4. Focus on the present
Realize that the hurt feelings, guilty thoughts, and tense muscles you feel whenever you think of your offense are what are actually making you suffer now—not what you did in the past. It is your reaction to it today that is what you are struggling with.
Consider: How do you feel right now about the offense? What are you thinking? How are you behaving?
Ask yourself: Are my present responses to the offense helpful? If not, what can I do now to relieve myself of my self-condemnation?
5. End self-attack
This essay is adapted from The Forgive for Good Recovery Workbook: Overcome Addiction, Heal Your Past, and Find Peace in Sobriety (New Harbinger, 2025, 184 pages).
The key to the practice of self-forgiveness is releasing self-attack—dealing too harshly with ourselves even if we have failed or hurt someone. A limited self-attack can be helpful at first to clarify what we did wrong, and then to remind us not to do it again. Dwelling on self-attack is often called remorse. You can tell that long-term self-attack is happening if you are experiencing excessive shame and guilt.
It may help to note the difference between guilt and shame: Someone who is feeling guilt might say, “I did something bad.” Someone who is feeling shame might say, “I am bad.” While guilt can be a helpful emotion that connects us to our moral compass and helps us make amends when we make mistakes, shame can be a toxic emotion. Shame is linked with addiction, depression, violence, bullying, suicide, and eating disorders, while remorse and guilt are not.
6. Own your unrealistic expectations
Most of us have a set of unconscious rules hovering in the back of our minds about how we expect ourselves to behave. These rules are demands or expectations that you do not control; for example, past behavior that you now think should have been different, or the belief that you must be a certain way. But those rules, many of which we picked up in childhood, are not always realistic.
For example, I might believe I have to be financially successful to feel good about myself, or I should have known better than to marry my first wife.
Remember, it is the unrealistic aspect of your rules that is a significant part of why you struggle to forgive yourself.
7. Hit the stop button
Replaying what you did over and over again in your head is not going to help you or the person you hurt. It just makes you feel bad and contributes nothing in terms of amends or apologies. So, every time you catch yourself ruminating on your mistakes, take a slow and deep breath into your belly, release it, and immediately shift your attention by looking away, moving your body, stepping away, repeating an affirmation aloud, or visualizing your negative thought floating away in a bubble.
8. Apologize
When you cannot forgive yourself because of something you did that harmed someone else, either by omission or commission, you have some work to do. Sometimes all it takes is a sincere apology to make things right. Apologies are most effective if made in person, but if that is not possible, consider writing a letter or an email.
Sincere apologies include four key steps:
- You admit something you did was wrong.
- You acknowledge that your wrong caused them pain, and that their pain is legitimate.
- You apologize for the wrong and the pain it caused.
- You offer a sincere effort to not do the wrong again.
9. Make it right
To make amends, look for a way to be kind to those you have hurt. If you spent half the family’s monthly food budget on gambling, make it up to them by turning out the tastiest meals ever cooked on a shoestring budget. Did you not get to your daughter’s championship basketball game until the second half? Make it right by volunteering to be next year’s assistant coach.
Even if the person you hurt is dead or otherwise absent from your life, you can still make amends by providing kindness to someone else. This is often called “paying it forward.” Think you were a bad parent? You cannot go back and change things now, but you can go out of your way to be an outstanding grandparent. Or maybe consider joining a Big Brothers or Big Sisters organization to serve as a mentor and provide some guidance and companionship to someone else’s child.
10. Shift your attention to the good
Now that you have honestly categorized the offense, and recognized your need to apologize and make amends, try this practice to solidify the self-forgiveness:
Take some deep breaths and remember someone you love. Bring that person’s image to your mind and feel the resulting goodness in the area around your heart.
Ask yourself: Is it time to let the bad feelings about myself go? If your answer is yes, visualize yourself holding the bad feelings in your hand, like a stone, and then letting them go.
Continue deep belly breathing and try to picture the clean conscience that came about from your apology and amends. Bring to mind how much you, like everyone else, deserve to be freed when you have felt remorse, made an apology, stopped the bad behavior, and made amends. You have paid your dues and can let it go.
Now ask your open heart for any other advice it might offer regarding letting go or making something right. Remember, this loving part of you offers you guidance that is without self-blame and negativity and full of acceptance and peace.
Take another deep breath.
11. Put yourself in perspective
Remember that you, like everyone else, have good and bad qualities. You are flawed and make mistakes and hurt people. Most self-forgiveness is about your wrong. But along with remorse, apology, and amends, you need to be realistic about your failures and how they fit into your identity overall. For example, what kind deeds have you done lately, such as helping a friend or family member during a time of need? What are some good qualities you possess, and how do they manifest?
12. Identify your positive intention
This is the final step of self-forgiveness. Change your story and create one that looks forward, not backward. Put your energy into looking for new ways to achieve your positive goals, rather than replaying your mistakes and failures. What positive goal of yours was delayed by the offense? How can you recommit to that goal? What story can you tell that includes the offense but does not center on it?
For example, the gambler referenced above used his addiction as the background for his story of reclaiming his life, supporting his children, and repaying his debts. He used his positive intention to explain how his addiction forced him to examine some bad habits that he had to deal with before he was capable of living a successful life.
As we realign with our positive intentions, we reverse the toxic emotional process of self-attack. When we feel stuck in a story of regret or failure, we cannot help but feel bad about ourselves. The positive intention brings us back to our goodness, connecting to our amends and letting go and shrinking the self-attack and draining it of its poison. Positive intention frees us from toxic shame in which we are helpless and miserable, while at the same time allowing healthy remorse—a prick to your conscience to inspire you to make amends for mistakes made. The bottom line is this: We cannot change the past, but through self-forgiveness we make peace in the present and plan for a brighter future.
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